


It Ruined Everything

by sp8ce



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abstract, Conversations, Death, Dream Bubbles, Existential Angst, Existentialism, Free Will, Multi, Powerlessness, SBURB/SGRUB, SGRUB, Self-Hatred, Vague, conceptual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 10:53:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18893170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sp8ce/pseuds/sp8ce
Summary: Eridan didn't choose who he is, and he hates it. He can't escape it, even when dead, and life stopping doesn't mean existence stopping. How powerless is he?





	It Ruined Everything

**Author's Note:**

> He was thirteen when he died.

“It ruined everything!” The words just spewed out.

You don’t know why you let them. You don’t know why you were even speaking or how you were speaking when you didn’t exist anymore, no part of anything existed.

And the lack of existence wasn’t the part that was ruined. You weren’t thinking of that. You felt plenty alive with your pain and you lack of acceptance and your rage at this stupid thing that felt more alive than you ever were. It was sentient on a level you couldn’t be. It controlled your fate in a way you never could.

It silenced _them,_  though. The rage you’re portraying isn’t of someone beaten down enough by death to trust again. They’re uneasy. You’re ruining everything when you thought you couldn’t anymore.

After the sating silence, you think they respond at the same time.

“No.”

“You did.”

“I’m sorry.”

You can’t see them because your vision is blurred out. Why do you still feel like you have a body when you don’t, you don’t, you don’t? Why does it still feel like you’re alive and being torn apart when you’re not supposed to feel like this anymore? You’re going to disappear into the blackness because your body doesn’t exist, except it does, in some way. You bet it was that again, it was always that, it was always that, and it ruined everything because it’s part of all of this. It’s part of what created you. And you never wanted to be created. It never made your story happy.

“I know I did,” you say, sullen. You’re torn apart. She doesn’t even know what to say to that, at least not for a moment.

“Then take responseability!” she responds, and your body twists. What are you, a writhing spectacle?

“It’s not that altruistic.” You take a good look at them this time. You see her flowing locks that defy gravity even when she’s not swimming. Her flushed cheeks with that fuschia glow. There’s something hard in your eyes like there’s something cold in hers as she came at you.

You don’t know why the other girl is there. She’s beaming at you, now that you’re making eye contact. You feel like she can read through you, and it unnerves you. You guess you don’t quite have a mask of royalty against her rust blood when your eyes are blank and your blood feels cold.

 _And_ you’re guessing he’s here because Feferi is, which cuts something in you, but you push that aside. You guess he’s being magnanimous towards Feferi to drag his ass out to welcome you into death. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been fighting just as hard as you to kill you. You just won. You’re guilty, and the shield of rage towards that _fucking..._ , well it was wearing through.

“There’s nothing to be upset about, Eridan. Death may be inevitable...”

“I’m not upset about bein’ dead,” you say, and you’re tired again. You can’t portray any of this. You can’t portray how you never got a chance, no version of you ever did. Maybe it’s the makeup of who you are, but you didn’t _choose_ to be this way. It did. And nothing you ever did fixed anything.

Maybe it was easy to draw it back. Before the game started. Back when you thought Feferi cared about you, and history made the horrors of everyday life miniscule. Maybe you’d been messed up then too; of course, you were. But that doesn’t _stop_ the fact that all _hope_ was lost, completely shattered, _destroyed_ , the second that game began.

“It ruined everything,” you repeat, and you know they’re being really patient with you now. Feferi’s getting irritated, you can tell. She doesn’t like waiting on you, especially when you’re making nonsensical self-pitying ramblings like you are now.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, and you forgot he said it in the first place. It is misplaced. Feferi looks at him annoyed. You still don’t know why he had to come, why she came, why Aradia did. Maybe your guard should be up, maybe this wasn’t a greeting party. How could you ever think it was?

“What?”

“It’s easier when it’s codes and pixels,” he says. He seems weirdly at ease, relaxed in a way you’ve never seen him before.

“What is this?”

“He’s just trying to be nice!” Feferi gives out, clearly frustrated by your confusion, or maybe just the fact Sollux’s willing to talk to you.

“I’m saying sorry,” he says. “I repurposed it.”

Right. Him and his crazy coding abilities. You forgot about that, not that you care. You believe in the fate and the fate was for that to happen. Nothing matters. Not him or his weird apology or Feferi’s fuming gaze or Aradia’s live eyes.

“None of us have any control,” you say.

“You had control, you just chose wrong! Reel-y, we’re here to forgive you though!”

“I didn’t,” you say, and god it sounds crass when it comes out. Everyone there is giving you an awkward stare. “I chose wrong cause that’s who I am. And I'd never any choice in that. So no, I've no control. And it’s all fucked up, and it’s no one’s fault cause it’s always bigger than us. Fate is a joke. We’re a joke. I don’t even know why this is happening, why you’re here.”

“We’re trying to reconcile! Why do you have to ruin it?”

“Isn’t it interesting though?” Aradia pipes in. Feferi bites her lip. “To see time changes things, but there’s _more_ , Eridan. You’re not stuck.”

“I don’t think you quite grasp that I _am_ ,” you respond. She’s looking at you like you’re some sort of riddle that she wants to solve, but doesn’t quite know how. You don’t know or care what that means. It’s all useless anyways. A day ago you probably wouldn’t have even given her the chance to speak. You’re not sure you want to now anyways; you’re just glad she’s not looking at you like Feferi is, like you’re something that should be destroyed that’s been given a chance to survive and that chance is over, but she’s just so magnificent she’s giving you more chances, and with each passing second of your nihilistic bullshit you’ve destroyed another chance.

“You’re not stuck! You’re not lost at sea! You’re a fin-beast, and it’s your choice,” she says.

“I didn’t choose to be that though. I didn’t choose any of this. I don’t want it. I want out, but there’s nothing, Fef. There’s nothing I can do. I’m dead, but I’m still me. There wasn’t even oblivion. I’m helpless,” you say. “I’m sorry.”

“You want oblivion?” Sollux asks. It irritates you. You don’t want his judgement now. Feferi’s is enough. You just shrug.

“Are we supposed to feel sorry for you? That you’re a bad troll who makes bad decisions and then complains about it with your over dramatic emotional theatrics?” Her words are loud and crass, and you find yourself flinching away from the sound of her voice.

“I’m sorry,” you say. “I’m sorry.” You’re going to cry; you’re proving her point. Everything you do is theatrical, everything you do is over the top, but you can’t stop it when everything feels like _everything,_ and you _can’t take it._

“Feferi, maybe you should go,” Aradia says. You suck a breath in because you don’t want her to go, you don’t, but you don’t want to feel her hatred for another second. She nods.

“Sollux?” she says.

“I’m gonna stay with AA,” he says. Feferi looks pretty upset with that, but she doesn’t say anything else as she leaves in the distance, into some sort of weird formation with a colour of a lit up fin and similar veins, but enveloped her like darkness.

“Eridan, you’re right. Fate has a way of deciding things out of our control. Some things were always going to happen, and I’m sorry that upsets you so. But you’re not powerless. You can change to whoever you want to be make your own decisions. You don’t have to hate yourself,” Aradia says. She touches you hand which is balled up tight against your chest with your crossed arms.

“What are you? My moirail,” you say. You meant to say that you can’t change, that that was the point, that you never could, that you’ve been trying. But that came out instead. Because you weren’t a good person, you never were and never will be.

“She’s just trying to be nice,” Sollux says. He rolls his eyes at you, but you’re not hearing animosity like you usually do.

“That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? That’s why you said, ‘It ruined everything,’ because you need someone else to tell you that it isn’t all over,” Aradia says.

“You honestly think that I’ve had power to be something not unloveable down to my core?”

“I can’t believe you’ve called me dramatic,” Sollux says. Aradia glares at him. He just smiles. “You’re not unlovable.. You know that right?”

“We are who we are. We’re born, and we live. We have no control over that. The game did.”

“Death makes us sub-alpha timeline. Sollux is half there, I’m all the way in it. But you’re a subcategory off it; you don’t affect it. Your purpose now is your own,” Aradia says.

“I’m still trapped as me.” You’re wearing this to death. You wish you trusted them.

“I’m stuck as me,” Sollux says. “At least you’re not a, ‘ _Pathetic, piss-blooded, mutated wwannabe._ ’”

“Just ‘cause I...” how are you supposed to say, ‘ _had a black crush_ ’? “Doesn’t mean you gotta hate yourself, Sol.”

“Oh, don’t think I have that high of an opinion of your opinion.”

“I know you don’t think highly of me,” _like you should (not)._

“Now that you know that, you just need to understand basic decency, and you’re halfway close to understanding why I don’t like you,” Sollux says. You want to retort, to have a comeback, but you mostly just want to _stop being this: you_ that _you dislike._

“Then why are you here,” Aradia says, breaking your and Sollux’s gaze.

“FF....”

“It was your idea!” she says.

“His _what_?” You thought they were there because she actually still cared about you. You’re so naive, so stupid. Why would you think that anyone could care about you?

“Guilt?” Sollux responds.

“Just _leave_ ,” you say. You’ve been coming to, not so disoriented by the fact you’re still existing, and you’re beginning all the stuff you’re saying, you’re saying; that there are people here and you are here, and you’re making it all worse, making yourself vulnerable and ruining _everything._

“Fine! I don’t dislike you!” Sollux gives out. “You’re right. We’re stuck as who we are, and I think you’re _ridiculous_ , but I’m not even quite dead or alive, and I like it that way, so who am I to talk?”

“I want to be here,” Aradia says. “I like talking to you, even if I don’t agree with your nihilism.”

“And I had her,” Sollux adds. He finds Aradia’s hand and squeezes it.

“I don’t know what this means.”

“Dying is disorienting. You shouldn’t be alone when you wake up.”

“I don’t want to face it,” you say. “Death. It feels like living with no escape.”

“It’s not that bad,” Sollux says, and he awkwardly holds out a hand. You look at Aradia, and she’s beaming. You’re beginning to love her smile and Sollux’s smirk, and you feel something small and broken repairing in your chest. You’re so scared of being alone. You take his hand, and Aradia leads you both off.

You don’t know what they’re going to show you, what this afterlife is going to come out to be. But you do know that you’re content with them, albeit confused. Maybe the game didn’t ruin _everything_. Maybe death, continuing to exist in some form, wouldn’t be so bad.

Maybe there was hope for you yet.

 

**Author's Note:**

> A vague one-shot I thought I'd finish. Originally posted 01/17.
> 
> I hope it makes sense as you went along; I hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know what you think!


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